Page 141 of Cruel Knots

My bottom lip trembles as a sob chokes my throat. I’d allowed myself to forget about Dad’s miserable, bedridden life over the past few weeks. Now that he’s sick, I feel terrible.

“Mr. Baldwin is away,” Laura continues. “There’s no one else who can help.”

“I can’t come,” I say as tears burn my eyes. “I want to but I can’t. There’s no way to get out of here. Besides that, I can’t let Callum’s men catch me. You know what it has been like for me all these years. I can’t go back to being controlled by him.”

“There’s no one guarding the house,” Laura says, sounding hopeful. “Mr. Baldwin doesn’t keep anyone in the house anymore. He gets a cleaning company to come in once a week to take care of the house and that’s it. Your father has no one, Miss Lucia. He needs you.”

“I’m so, so sorry,” I say through a choked throat.

“Miss Lucia! I’m ashamed of you!” Laura’s voice thunders in my ear. She’s usually a quiet woman and rarely shouts. Dad must be in a terrible state for her to behave this way. “You have to come right away or stop calling yourself a daughter of this man. He was always good to me and my family. He never treated anyone unfairly his whole life. How can God curse him with such cruel, irresponsible children?!”

The phone feels terribly heavy in my hand.

Tears pour from my eyes while my heart breaks with guilt and sadness. I shouldn’t have bullied that waitress into giving me her phone. Not knowing how Dad is doing would’ve been so much better than being told he’ll die without my help.

Should I ask Damien for help? I wonder.

At once, his enraged face rises in my mind. He’ll be pissed off if he knows I dared to contact Dad without his permission. Even Mikhail and Leon might not take my side. They all want me to cut ties with my family and be theirs.

The little trust and faith they’ve developed toward me would shatter if they knew what I did. I can’t tell them, I realize.

Laura’s voice shouts at me through the phone as I clutch it in my shaking hand. My body shakes with the force of my sobs while my tears turn my vision hazy. Despite that, I become alert to the sound of heavy footsteps moving closer toward me.

Switching off the call, I whirl around.

A tall, bulky man is tottering toward me. Dressed in a luxurious navy suit, he looks like one of the guests crowding the entrance hall. His unsteady moves tell me he’s heavily drunk.

He stares at me but seems to have trouble focusing. Still, he manages to drag himself up to me.

“It’s time to go home, sweetheart,” he says in a deep, slurred voice. “Daniel Ricci won’t be coming here tonight. What a waste of a fucking night!”

Moving closer, he wraps an arm around my shoulder. “Time to take your old daddy home now,” he says, putting all his weight on me. “It’s time Mia put her sweet mouth on my cock and sucked me to sleep.”

Disgust spreads through me. What kind of a man spoke this way to his daughter?

“I’m not your daughter,” I say with a huff, throwing the man off me.

He easily slumps against a column.

“Don’t sass your Pa, Emilia” he admonishes. “Call Diego and ask him to bring the car to the front so we can go home already.”

An idea sparks in my head. Maybe there is a way out of Volkov Manor, after all.

“Pa, I’m cold,” I say, playing along with the drunk man.

“You’re always making so much trouble for your old Pa,” he says in a slurred voice. “Just get married already so I can have some peace in my life.”

“Yes, Pa,” I say demurely.

The man shirks off his jacket clumsily and throws it at me.

Taking his jacket, I put it on quickly. The large black attire is long enough to reach my mid-thighs, effectively hiding a good portion of my dress.

The man slings his arm around me once again. His weight nearly makes my knees crumble but I soldier on, dragging him to the entrance hall.

There’s every chance of me being caught by Damien and his brothers.

Guilt swirls in my belly. I know it’s wrong of me to deceive them after they decided to trust me but I don’t have a choice right now. There’s no way I can stay here and be obedient while my father is dying.

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